ISLAMABAD, April 15 A committee which was set up by the Ministry of Sports to probe Pakistan's poor performance at the Beijing Olympics hockey event has come up with some mind-boggling revelations.

It has found that merit was blatantly violated in the selection of the hockey squad and has requested Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who is paton-in-chief of the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF), to 'blacklist' the then management of the PHF.

It must be mentioned here that Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, who had been the prime minister of the country, was then the president of the PHF.

Khawaja Zakauddin was the manager/chief coach of the team while Naveed Alam (coach), Khalid Mahmood (senior vice-president) and Islahuddin (selection committee chairman) were the other officials.

Pakistan had finished eighth in the 12-nation hockey competition.

When contacted, a member of the probe committee told Dawn on Wednesday on the condition of anonymity that the committee was strongly pursuing to fix responsibility of the “poor and pathetic performance”.

The official said that a number of players admitted before the committee that they had missed the ball on numerous occasions and remained defensive rather than attacking the opposition to avert a more humiliated defeat and convert it to just “a marginal defeat” with less number of goals.

The committee has also found that the national team was rather a stage for politics and leg pulling, and players were busy in politics and personal scoring rather than focussing on the game and playing for the nation.

The chairman of the probe committee, Federal Textile Minister Rana Farooq Saeed, who was accompanied by Olympians Abdul Waheed Khan and Shahbaz Senior, said “We questioned each and every official and player individually even the former sports federal secretary appeared before the committee but it was tragic and sad to learn that even the team management was not selected on merit.”

He added “Naveed Alam had no experience but he was attached with the national squad. The squad completely lacked fitness and game plan to win a match.”

All of them, he said, who were linked with the Beijing Olympic debacle were identified and their names were forwarded to the prime minister to 'black list' them and permanently block their future role with the PHF.

The committee also recommended revival of hockey in educational institutions, especially at the school level, while adding that departmental and domestic hockey should be revived immediately.

Without going into details, Rana Farooq said “We have questioned the former PHF secretary, Akhtar-ul-Isalm, Islahu-ddin and many others about their role during their stint with the PHF.”

The members were of the view that to bring more transparency in the PHF affairs, an audit of the hockey federation must be conducted by the government.